Help the Time Lord save the galaxy: How YOU can take the Tardis for a spin

Doctor Who puts on his most reassuring manner and says not to worry, everything’s going to be fine.

‘Trust me. I am, after all, the Doctor,’ he explains, as if that’s enough to dispel the fearsome army of intergalactic monsters lurking somewhere out there in The Unknown.

We are about to embark on The Doctor Who Experience, an exhibition which combines interactive action with fascinating walk-through displays. Committed Who-fans are at last able to come face to face with the Doctor — played by the latest incumbent, Matt Smith, in specially filmed scenes — and get up close and uncomfortably personal with his scariest enemies.

Exterminate! Samantha Crawford puts the finishing touches to a model Dalek which forms part of a display at The Doctor Who Experience at London's Olympia

The year is 2811 and there’s a problem —
isn’t there always? The Doctor is trapped in Pandorica’s Box, a prison
built under Stonehenge to secure the most feared organism in the
universe, which just happens to be him. He’s been there since the end of
the last TV series, and now he needs to be rescued and reunited with
his beloved Tardis.

And, as his newly recruited companion, it’s my job to step through a crack in time to join him for this, his latest challenge.

I discover the Tardis conveniently parked nearby and, as the doors magically open, I’m inside — leaping on to the shiny metal gantry to take my place at the control panel.

The Doctor is helpfully booming encouragement from overhead screens, but my first worry is that driving this machine won’t be as easy as it looks on TV.

Doctor, doctor: MacLaine Marshall, 6, takes control of The Tardis during a sneak preview of The Doctor Who Experience earlier this week

Cosmic: Fans look up a porthole from which The Doctor, currently played by Matt Smith, looks out of at the hands-on exhibition

‘Oh dear, oh dear, the old girl’s a bit wary of learner drivers,’ he says. Nor does the Tardis like adults, apparently.

‘They are boring, they drink coffee and they go on and on,’ the Time Lord complains.

But in spite of that, I get the craft to shudder into life and, surrounded by flashing lights, honking klaxons and stirring music, we have lift-off.

The Doctor is beside himself with joy. Not even one of his trusty sonic screwdrivers could get him out of Pandorica’s Box, and it’s now not just the Doctor’s life, but the whole future of Earth, maybe even the universe, resting on my shoulders.

When the doors slide open again, I am in what he likes to call a ‘potentially hostile environment’. That may be understating it a bit — I am surrounded by Daleks of every hue.

‘Human, you are a prisoner of the
Daleks,’ they shriek. ‘We conquer and destroy. Exterminate all humans!
Exterminate! Exterminate!’

But
the Doctor, watching from his bunker, is dismissive of this nasty
threat. ‘Not human,’ he tells them. ‘Just part of a sub-species called
shoppers.’

It seems to work, because after a lot more screaming and aggressive waving of their pointy bits, they retreat.

OOD

Telepathic aliens whose credibility is undermined by turkey toggles dangling from their faces. But they were able to warn David Tennant’s Doctor of his impending demise.

CYBERMEN

Many fans’ No. 1 villains, these cyborgs first took on William Hartnell’s Doctor in 1966. Heavy on their feet, they’d fare worse than Ann Widdecombe on Strictly Come Dancing.

ICE WARRIORS

With a life expectancy of 300 years, these green-tongued, 7ft-tall denizens of the planet Mars caused alarm during Patrick Troughton’s days as the Doctor in 1967.

MELKUR

Tom Baker met the Melkur in 1981. They arrive on Traken only to turn to stone. When the Doctor is drawn into the statue, he finds a Tardis housing his arch enemy, The Master.

WEEPING ANGELS

These creepy graveyard statues have sent many viewers running for cover behind the sofa. They first featured in the episode Blink with Tennant.

RASTON WARRIOR ROBOT

These silver-bodied robots are ruthless killing machines that hunt by detecting movement. They can leap into the air and magically reappear beside prey.

If the Doctor is impressed with my Dalek-wrestling skills, he doesn’t say, but urges me onwards — ‘Do not blink,’ he warns. ‘Whatever you do, do not blink’ — to the next part of the adventure.

And so I find myself, wide-eyed and unblinking, in a room filled with the nightmarish Weeping Angels.

They come at me from all directions in glorious 3D and after a lot of monster-dodging and leaping niftily out of the way of tracer bullets, I am free. And so is a grateful Doctor.

As if by way of reward, doors open to the exhibition of Who artefacts. Here is Tom Baker’s scarf, standing out from the original costumes of all 11 Doctors. I’ve already flown the latest Tardis, but now I find myself in two earlier Tardis sets, from the eras of David Tennant and Peter Davison.

I stroke K9, the fourth Doctor’s robot doggie companion — a product of the 51st century. I meet K1, the giant robot created by the eccentric Professor Kettlewell to help humanity until it was hijacked for evil purposes by a group of unscrupulous scientists.

And I come face to face with Davros, the evil creator of the Daleks, and the authoritarian Judoon — ‘in space we are the law’ — towering over me. Cybermen glower across the room. Sontarans block my path.

I would love to tinker with the Doctor’s many gadgets — video players from the earliest series, when they were still the stuff of fiction, plus different models of sonic screwdriver — but these are real museum pieces and are displayed in glass cases. The whole Experience is, well, an experience.

Children at the preview with me loved it — although one or two had to be persuaded by their parents to watch the scariest bits, and one six-year-old, dressed as Matt Smith’s Doctor, refused point-blank to go in once the familiar theme tune had struck up.

‘But kids will come here expecting it to be a bit scary, and I don’t think we will be letting them down. But with the Doctor on screen following you around, hopefully you will know that you are in safe hands. After all, the Doctor always wins.’

Just in case any younger children find the interactive shows a bit too intense, discreet escape routes have been built in.

But there’s unlikely to be a quick escape from the queues waiting to be photographed alongside monsters, or from the grip of the gift shop which sells everything from T-shirts to Doctor Who figures. ‘We’ve tried to make it like a complete theatre show,’ Matt Smith — freshly released from Pandorica’s Box — tells me.

‘If you didn’t believe Doctor Who was real before, you will now!’

The Doctor Who Experience is at London’s Olympia 2 from Sunday. The tour runs from 10am-6pm daily and lasts 90 minutes. Tickets from £12.50. For more information, visit doctorwhoexperience.com.